Posted on 01/22/2010 7:58:50 AM PST by 1rudeboy
In my last post, I explained why it’s a mistake to deny free speech rights to people organized as corporations on the grounds that corporations aren’t “real people.” It’s true, of course, that a corporation is not a person. But the people who own and operate it are. “Corporate speech” is really just speech by people using the corporate form.
The mistake here is one we see in other contexts. Critics often denigrate rights by conflating them with the means used to exercise them. For example, a standard rhetorical attack on property rights is the claim that property rights aren’t really “human rights.” Property has no rights, it is said. Its true of course that property as such is not entitled to any rights. However, property rights actually belong to the people who own the property, not the physical objects themselves. As the Supreme Court explained in its 1972 decision in Lynch v. Household Financial Corporation:
[T]he dichotomy between personal liberties and property rights is a false one. Property does not have rights. People have rights. The right to enjoy property without unlawful deprivation, no less than the right to speak or the right to travel, is in truth a “personal” right.... In fact, a fundamental interdependence exists between the personal right to liberty and the personal right in property.
When I criticize decisions like Kelo v. City of New London, the objection is not that government has violated the rights of land or buildings, but those of the people who own them.
This rhetorical tactic is most often used by liberals and leftists to criticize rights advocated by conservatives and libertarians. However, it’s important to understand that the same ploy can easily be turned on rights favored by the political left. Consider, for instance, the right to use contraceptives upheld by the Supreme Court in Griswold v. Connecticut. Contraceptives, after all, have no rights. They are inanimate physical objects, like any other property. Under the Connecticut law banning their use, women were still free to avoid pregnancy (e.g. — by abstaining from sex, or by using the rhythm method). They just couldn’t use this particular type of property to do it. It’s easy to see that any such critique of Griswold would be specious. After all, contraceptives are just a means that women use to exercise their rights to reproductive choice, albeit a particularly effective one.
The same point applies to corporate speech and property rights. When corporations “speak,” they are just a means that individuals use to exercise their rights of free speech — often a more effective means than the available alternatives. And just as the right protected in Griswold actually was a human right rather than a right belonging to the contraceptives, property rights are rights of human owners, not rights belonging to tracts of land or objects.
Abjuring this common rhetorical tactic doesn’t by itself resolve longstanding debates over the scope and content of human rights. You can still attack property rights or corporate free speech rights on other grounds. But it does help focus the discussion on real issues and reduce rhetorical distractions.
If corporations have no First Amendment rights as some on the left say, then can the government control what CBS News “spends money” to broadcast? I think not.
I don’t see the logic in the position that people lose their rights by incorporation in that manner.
incorporation = incorporating
PS The oral arguments of Supreme Court cases are often available on the web - I’d love to know if my hypothetical was asked, and what the response was.
in this piece and in modern common understanding of the term “Rights” — a bastardized and perverted meaning of what that term meant is used.
This is a “Right” as something that is allowed, that government must allow, or even in a more bastard formulation — something that government must provide!
The term, back in the days of Blackstone and the Founders, was part of a a combination describing behaviors, duties and actions — “Rights and Wrongs”. The law can recognize that something is the right thing to do or the wrong thing to do. If something is the wrong thing to do, the law is proper in penalizing it or forbidding it. If something is the right thing to do, the law must allow for it to be done!
If you abridge the right to "contract" by suppressing one or the other of my rights, e.g. "speech", that may well be exercised through the right of "contract" you do, in fact, abridge my right of speech.
It's a tapestry and every thread is needed.
I really do think the concept is so simple and far reaching that Leftwingtards are congenitally incapable of dealing with it.
Assault on corporations is really an assault on freedom of association.
I'm not an expert in jurisprudence, but I see various problems in according to legal entities like corporations the same (or similar) rights with which the individual human beings (who own the corporations) have been endowed.
The author, himself, says that people own companies. He does not say that say that companies are "made up" of people. In doing so, he likens companies to chattel (i.e., movable property) or real estate (immovable property), which can be owned - not, e.g., to political parties, in which different people join together with the declared intention of influencing policy-making, promoting political candidates, etc.
I, for my part, do not think that possessions - e.g., automobiles, livestock, buildings, etc. - should be accorded rights on a par with those with which human beings are endowed. After all, the counterpart of rights, e.g.: civic duties and penalties, cannot be imposed upon them (possessions), or it would be ridiculous to attempt doing so - or can you imagine a judge sentencing a pick-up truck to hard labor, ordering that a desk be incarcerated, or condemning a company to the gas chamber? Of course, they can be taxed and fined, they can be disbanded or expropriated, and they can also "die" (go bankrupt).
Companies have no vote in popular elections, but they can exert far more influence on the outcome of a democratic election than can individual citizens.
My impression is that companies are more like amoebae or perhaps ant colonies: They do not possess volition (i.e., a will), but they do exhibit certain tropisms. They do show a tendency to vegetative growth, but can also actively attack and devour competitors. They generally display only a rudimentary sense of right and wrong. And generally speaking, I would be very hesitant to grant them rights on a par with human beings - let alone full-fledged citizens.
Regards,
"Show me just what Mohammed brought that was new, and there you will find only things evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached." - Manuel II Palelogus
Money has always been in politics. SCUTUS was correct in its ruling that corporations are legal entities (individuals) that should be able to participate in politics by contributing money.
If you want to try to make politics clean and fair, you should support a law to force every candidate to timely list the name and amount of his/her direct contributers on a publicly available web site such as the Federal Election Commission. That way, you will learn who or what group is behind the candidate and what issues the candidate is likely to deliver for if elected.
Indirect contributions, not controlled by the candidate, should still be allowed and contributions to those should still have some privacy as the right to be anonymous is a human right too. I give to the NRA political pacs, but I don’t want my name disclosed as my right to firearms is my personal and private right.
I agree.
If the state can grant special privileges to those who choose the corporate form, can't it also impose special restrictions on how that corporate form may operate? If so, what is the scope of restrictions that the government can legitimately impose?
So the law could properly penalize or forbid gluttony, disrespect for one's parents, or expressions of bigotry?
That’s right. Law is based on a system of morals.
No. While it's true to an extent the Law is based on morals, these Laws are outlined in Commandments 6-10. These are horizontal Laws, or laws between Man and Men. Murder, theft, perjury, etc. are transgressions against other people and are justifiably called 'crimes' by Man.
The first 5 Commandments are vertical Laws, or Laws between God and Man. Idolatry, blasphemy, etc. are punishable only by God. They fall within your Right of Conscience whether to adhere to them or not.
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The duties of men are summarily comprised in the Ten Commandments, consisting of two tables; one comprehending the duties which we owe immediately to God-the other, the duties we owe to our fellow men.
Noah Webster, The History of the United States (New Haven: Durrie and Peck, 1832), pp. 336-337, 49]
That word is in there BTW.
If you prohibit my free speech rights as I exercise them through my right to contract and own a corporation, you are still prohibiting my free speech rights.
The nature of the beast doesn't matter ~ it's the issue of free speech. All the USSC has done is tell the Legislative and Executive branches that they can't just lurch around and step on people's property with the command to "Just Shut Up And Take It Punk".
It is good to feel some of the freedom my ancestors thought they were handing down to me.
I was by no means suggesting that Constitutionally guaranteed rights like the right of free citizens to contract with each other be diminished. People should, of course, be free to contract with each other - for various purposes, but also to jointly own companies. I merely feel that it is morally, and practically, questionable to say that the resultant legal constructs - viz. corporations - should enjoy the same rights and to the same extent as the owners do.
Who says that the Right to Contract means that such civil rights as Freedom of Speech or the Right to Bear Arms or the Right to Refuse Self-Incrimination - all enumerated in the Bill of Rights - automatically devolve onto the resultant legal constructs?
If you prohibit my free speech rights as I exercise them through my right to contract and own a corporation, you are still prohibiting my free speech rights. The nature of the beast doesn't matter ~ it's the issue of free speech.
No, you are still at liberty to join or found, e.g., a political party, which I would consider a "different beast" than a commercial enterprise. And in my view, the nature of the beast is relevant.
All the USSC has done is tell the Legislative and Executive branches that they can't just lurch around and step on people's property with the command to "Just Shut Up And Take It Punk".
All I'm saying is that it seems questionable to grant the SAME rights and the SAME protections to the SAME extent to such legal constructs as commercial enterprises. I concede that corporations are, to a degree, merely agents of the owners. But there are dynamics involved, and corporations can indeed end up pursuing goals which none of the individual owners would wish to sanction. Nor does the restriction and/or regulation of the Rights of corporations (as agents or representatives of actual human beings) prevent those actual human beings from continuing to exercise their Rights in other ways.
It is good to feel some of the freedom my ancestors thought they were handing down to me.
It's a platitude, but everyone knows that most of the Founding Fathers would have freaked out if they had only known how some of the legal precepts they framed more than two centuries ago would be one day interpreted.
Regards - and thanks for your views on the subject!
Thank you for your thoughtful insights on the topic at hand! I suspect that you have special background knowledge of the issues.
Regards,
So, Commandment X is a "horizontal" law?
You shall not covet your neighbor’s house; you shall not covet your neighbor’s wife, or male or female slave, or ox, or donkey, or anything that belongs to your neighbor.
- Exodus 20:17
So, merely coveting my neighbor's wife or property (i.e., thinking about how much I'd like to have them) is a transgression against my neighbor, and justifiably called a "crime?" (Perhaps "thoughtcrime" would be a more-appropriate term!)
Awesome!
Regards,
No, it's not related to thought, but to action.
'Covet' is the basis for criminal charges like conspiracy and premeditation.
Adultery is breech of contract.
It's a legal fiction that corporations are "persons". It is once again a legal reality that human rights extend into the things they own, possess and use.
You can't tell a farmer he's a free man and then take his property without "JUST COMPENSATION". You can't tell a stockholder he's a free man and then take his property ~ his right to speak ~ by prohibiting him from speaking through his property, i.e. his corporation.
So, let's see, First Amendment, Fourth Amendment, Fifth Amendment, various clauses regarding rights throughout the body of the Constitution ("contract" is one), and now people still argue that they can screw with my stuff and not abridge those others ~ how wrong they are ~ which is why we have the Second Amendment.
Surprised it wasn't used earlier!
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